Tuesday will mark one month since Spokane County recorded its first confirmed case of coronavirus. Since then, 275 people have tested positive; 15 have died.
On Monday, community leaders held a briefing to answer some of the questions they heard during an online and telephone town hall meeting from last Wednesday. They included a question for Spokane Mayor Nadine Woodward about how economic and other restrictions would be lifted, when it’s time.
“It’s an ongoing issue that we’re talking about daily. What does it look like when we open the economy back up? It will be in increments; it won’t be all at once," Woodward said. "We need to make sure that it’s backed up by data and then when we do start opening segments of the population or of the economy, we need to be tracking that data even more so so that we don’t have an uptick on cases and we don’t see another wave of COVID come into our community.”
Woodward reminded viewers about the new regional financial helpline created for people to ask questions about the economic aid avenues available. Spokane city librarians are answering the phones and offering help between 8 and 5 during the week. The number for that is 509-625-6650.
There were also questions about the restrictions in place: How do you make sure people are following the rules? Who decided that pot shops should remain open? And why are fishing and golfing prohibited? State Senator Andy Billig answered that one.
“Almost all activities are restricted and that includes fishing and golfing," he said. "The reason for restricting these non-essential activities is to reduce as much contact as possible. We know when we reduce contact we are controlling the virus. When you think about people congregating in a parking lot or a boat launch or playing golf and touching a pin or touching a sand rake, those are all opportunities for virus transmission.”
In Washington, more than 10,400 cases have been recorded and more than 500 deaths. The state does not report the number of people tested.
Idaho reports 1,426 confirmed cases and 27 deaths. Kootenai County has 45 cases. Nearly 15,000 people have been tested in Idaho.
